The increasingly metricisation of time – as towards the technicisation of objects – allowing for animation

Jaquet-Droz – Spinet player – 18th century

Wanda Landofsca on the harpsichord – scientist were observing and analysing what was occuring at the human being technical instrument interface. Friction in the relations between human and machine were to be kept to a minimum – accidents

Programming of different time modes into physical objects is the greatest challenge of computing the physical

Kronos – life is limited – he ate his own children – suffering – finitude

Kairos – the god of the moment – sculptures of him have full hair in the front and bald head in the back, grasp him when he approaches you. To grasp an auspicious moment – an interface

Aion – eternity – the time which is beyond our perception – beyond life. Cosmic time, machinic time (the potency of being eternal – The Long Now)

You can only extend the moment of auspicious time – through artificial paradises (drugs, virtuality)

ALL OF THESE ARE THINKING OBJECTS – media in the fundamental sense of using these objects as a way of developing a philosophical or conceptual resource

Notes

Questioning ideas of progress – our traditional conception of technologies as developing through functionalism, industrialism, commercial forces – whereas mostly we see in variantology, and in Penelope Gouk’s work (Pythagorean Hammers)

The functionalist / capitalist / industrial narratives for the development of technologies – – hegemony of powers which a sort of hermeneutics of progress.

The concepts and ideas of modernity and modern thinking – come from ‘elsewhere’ – i.e.: The power of the provinces, the development of Hegel’s progress map – i.e.: If the idea of

Nanni Balestrini – Nanni Balestrini Tape Mark I (1961) – Nanni Balestrini’s 1966 character-and plot-free novel Tristan, which used a combination of techniques to make up a random text that differed from book to book. Sedicesimo 17, Isolde, uses the signs used for checking print quality, randomly crossing and mixing the inks during printing in a design created by chance and error, with each copy unique.